Firstly, an observation that has surprised me a bit: I don't seem to have any actual friends at work and I've been there 3 and a half months now. I know I make much cake and three course dinner of how grumpy and miserable I am/can be as a person, but I'm also friendly, hopefully disarmingly/ amusingly upfront, and approachable. (These are things I have been told, not just trumpeting.) I can be good company. I can make eye contact without being creepy (I am told!). I've always found it easy to be social one on one, whilst more or less hating social situations (as they are contrived and therefore painful - I'm not sure if I am imagining spontaneous and freeflowing as better...).
At work, whilst I am incapable of 'work face', or front, I can definately present a certain part of myself predominently: the friendly, helpful, efficient part. So, anyway, been doing that. And paying attention to the way people act in this environment. Which is to say friendly, much biscuit providing, and amongst people who have known each other a while, lots of joking and bantering. Yet, while I'm there, though I do my best to blend whilst allowing me to be me (far too troublesome and exhausting to aim to be someone else, or some other idea of myself...its exhausting enough to be genuine while following all the rules of the phone conversations, not scripted as such, but heavily directed). So. being me, but not too much so.
And yet. I get the overwhelming feeling that I am being, for the most part, tolerated. If I am infront of someone's face, they will talk to me, because it seems to have been decided that I'm basically alright, if a bit obviously angsty...and occasionally manically anxious. You know, within the confines of my partition. I definately do make people laugh with my observations when theres less of us together. But if I wasn't there, I don't think it would matter, I don't think anyone would feel anything was lost. Sometimes they are joking about, a team consisting mostly of boys (and I do mean boys, not men, mentally), and I'll look up from a call and smile, and ask "what are we laughing about?" and the answer is a further part of a joke they are already having, so it makes them laugh more, but I don't get it. I'll smile along, and go back to the phone (we're never long off). Or I'll make a silly jokey comment myself, and sometimes there's a smile, an answering chuckle, a reply, sometimes not. We're all pretty busy and you never know when the phone will ring, its pretty constant. But - there's no connection.
Even my supervisor. I sit right next to her, she's the one I speak to the most, to ask questions. And she jokes a little. She too has the sense of humour of someone not totally at ease in the company she's in. There's a lot of her we don't see. I reckon privately, in her home life, she flows totally fine. This is the restraint of someone who knows they are a supervisor and not a foot soldier anymore. There's a seperation even if you act like there isn't. Though she does the best job of bridging it of any boss I've ever had: no airs at all, no entitlement whatsoever. I've only seen her *tell* someone to do something once, and that was delivered more like a mum than a boss. Because she is genuinely shit hot at her job and has all the knowledge (promoted off the floor), we all genuinely respect her. She's no idiot promoted beyond her abilities, like so many managers. She's clever, very slick indeed linguistically - and kindly. Markedly keen to motivate and not criticise. And yet. Its clear she's a friendly approachable supervisor, and not a work friend.
There are definately people in my work place who have friends, and I'm not one of them. I have put out feelers - the only person I thought really might work out has just left! Maybe everyone else is a slowburner. Who knows. But its been making me feel odd.
Now: that is all NOT copacetic in the slightest, not at all.
Isn't it a brilliant word?? Sounds like maths or Latin or something most definately important. It means: In Excellent Order. All working really well. Not status quo, its way beyond status quo. It's not neutral, or alright, or pretty good. It's everything going/ working A1. I'm unceratin whether it goes as far as Voltaire's Candide with "all being for the best in the best of all possible worlds" - but its close to that.
What definately WAS copacetic was Fluffhead's birthday party not yesterday, but the Saturday before.
I have only ever thrown 2 parties. Both disasters. One for friends, where all the many and different groups I mingled with back in college were put together all in one room for the evening, and hung about the edges making what Fry would call 'evils' at each other all evening. There was this big gap of nothingness in the middle of the room, where people could have been dancing or talking or snacking etc...and weren't. MORTIFYING. I had no idea how to get them to mix, and retreated to the kitchen (my usual part strategy anyway). Then there was the birthday party I threw for Fry when he was just turning 5.
Back in the days when McDonalds parties were all the thing. I gave out the invites in plenty of time - but on the day only 2 children about of a possible 25 showed. And Fry was popular, cheery and sweet. It was awful and strange and I felt dreadful for him...thankfully, he was small enough to simply think I had hired a very big room for him and 2 of his friends to play in, and was oblivious to the scale of the upset. That was a mercy. But I felt like a Terrible Bad Mother; it was my fault somehow, and I had done *something* wrong in the process.
NOT COPACETIC.
Whereas, bearing in mind this degree of stress, I organized Fluffhead's first ever party down to the smallest thing - I even had contingencies for things not working (e.g. if there was a lull after the Bouncy Castle section when the children had gone upstairs to the food room and eaten, if things then went all flat, I had planned games, pass the parcel and musical statues; loads of layers of small gifts wrapped in newspapers...even though this too had stressed me out, as I am certain shops are more mired in the whole girls-pink-dolls and boys-blue-cars, trains, anything active than even when I was small - and what on EARTH are Shopkins anyway????).
I outsourced the venue, got friends and family to help with the food - The Prince produced the World's Best Ever Minions Cake (which disappeared in a very quick three or so minutes feeding frenzy).
I still managed to get in a state of stress on the day, even though I was mellow about it right till the day before - partly cos I had planned it SO far in advance (booked the venue last September); and I was nicely distracted by angsting about work instead.
However, on the day, all children except 2 that were expected came. Only 1 left early due to injury. (Yes, kids get injured at parties, all that tearing about and throwing themselves at stuff.) All the mums were lovely. The children bounced and ran happily for the Bouncy Castle Hour. They actually ate the food provided (which is not always the case). Joyfully, we had too much food, and plenty for the grown ups to eat too (also not always the case). The things that really ensured the second half of the party went well though, were the Minions Cake (seriously, we had 2 cakes, both chocolate and vegan and exactly the same, except one had the minions icing and one didn't - and one got hoovered and the other *I* finished later)...and the BALLOONS. A mum friend and I had observed from visiting several other parties, that the number of balloons is really really important. Have none, or LOADS. Nothing is more tragic (in this limited context) than a child streaming with tears cos another child nicked their balloon. Truly. And helium balloons went down very well with the big children, who could run and pull them after and chase - there was a mad stampede of children racing around the edge of the room with the balloons, which I christened the Balloon Frenzy section of the party, and an absolutely golden sign of a parties success, children happiness wise. The older ones screamed about insanely pulling them behind; and the younger children ran slower near the edges with regular balloons - meaning they could play catch with them and kick them and biff them - and no balloon would float up to the celing and get lost - another terrible tragedy to witness (contextually, once again).
I decided long ago that the key to a successful Fluffhead party would be a bouncy castle, plus this sort of balloon insanity. Here, the Prince stepped in again - a canister of helium, meaning all children could have more than one balloon, and lots of colours to choose. No arguments.
The facepainter went down really well too, which was a total whimsy on my part - I met her at another party, and my inner child wated MY face painted so I booked her for Fluffhead. But the queue was so wonderfully long I did not get my wish - as the party reached its end, she was still sitting there, her cake untouched, with a remaining queue of children, even as parents were starting to herd up their children to leave. The Balloon Frenzy section of the party had ended up so intense and longlasting that it had pushed the cake till right near the end, and made the lull-filling games a non event. The children ran; the mums ate the ice cream provided for the children who were by now full of cake; and I walked about chatting and smiling manically and being rather overexcited.
Fluffhead fell in love with the fancy candle thing The Prince had bought to go on the cake - a singy - flower petals opening type thing from China, which drove us insane when we got home for the next week, where it intermittently lived in the outhouse so we could have respite from its tinny Happy Birthday notes. Until its battery died. Fluffhead fell asleep in mum's car on the way home, smearing his Batman face. Happy.
THAT WAS COPACETIC. The whole thing.
***
Interestingly, the next day I had a terrible migraine and was in a fearful bad mood, whcih persisted for 3 days after that. I felt shaky, nauseous, ill at ease. I look back at that afternoon andit definately went well: children happy, mums seemed happy. I was happy. Stanley was happy. Fluffhead was happy - without waking that line of about to be tantramous for more than a few minutes.
That all definately happened. A definate good day. And not just in my head, but observably. All WAS copacetic.
And yet. It doesn't cancel the memory of Fry's sad non-starter party. My strange mood the next day, and migraine...I wondered if it was a massive stress/ adrenaline comedown. I have no idea how long they can last. Or whether I am (bad-) habitually so used to feeling anxious, uneasy and saddened, that I KNOW I had a perfect time for a short while there, but that I can't quite process it, because it doesn't quite fit in my slightly mournful off kilter vision of the world? Its not going in the usual folders.
I don't think I have a Copacetic Head Folder. Or maybe I was just getting a bug. Which, again, would not be copacetic.
But that room, that day - that definately was. Few things in my whole life that I remember have gone as unadulteratedly well as that day. At least I have something to begin my Copacetic Head Folder with...
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